Study Logistics

Students were initially identified for invitation into the study through a random selection of ~ 4000 students generated by the U-M Registrars office. We eliminated any subjects under 18 in the Fall of the academic year.

The surveys were created and housed on a University of Michigan Qualtric platform, and the raw data continues to be maintained there.

Students received an email from us, inviting them to fill out the survey and receive a $10 gift card (appendix email). Students needed to be identified by their uniquenames through the course of their study participation, in order to be contacted every year and to link them to demographic and other information (They were deidentified for the purposes of analysis through the use of a randomly assigned subject number).

After completing the survey, students were sent an email with instructions about picking up their gift card at our university offices, and if they were unable to come to the office, we would arrange to email their gift card). Students filled out a receipt which was then used for university accounting purposes and to verify participation if needed.

Students who completed all 5 surveys were contacted by email and offered a final in person “exit interview” that included questions that were included on the previous surveys, as well as more speculative questions about their future goals and arts engagement expectations. This exit interview included an interactive index card exercise, but no analysis has been done on this section of the interview questions to date.